RE:RE:RE:Fortune mentioned in Financial Times article. Cobalt 27, a group set up to hold physical cobalt and reversed into a shell company, raised C$200m from investors at a price of C$9 a share to buy physical cobalt and future supply of the metal. Its shares were last traded on Friday at C$9.10. The company’s holdings come from a group of investors including Switzerland-based private equity fund Pala Investments, who bought up cobalt over the past year as prices started to rise as a result of growing demand for the metal in electric vehicle batteries.
Produced as a byproduct of copper and nickel, cobalt is mostly mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Its price has more than doubled over the past year.
The price is expected to increase as analysts forecast a faster penetration of electric vehicles by the middle of the next decade. Demand from batteries accounted for about half of cobalt demand last year.
Only a few listed options exist for investors who want exposure to cobalt, including companies with projects in development such as Fortune Minerals, and Hong Kong-listed China Molybdenum, which last year bought the Tenke copper and cobalt mine in the DRC.